What are the determinants of a happy and fulfilling life?
This is surely one of life’s biggest questions, and a question that has interested many of our ancestors. Buddha famously gave up his kingdom in search of happiness. Several Greek philosophers (from Aristotle to Epicurus and Plato to Socrates) had their own views on what it takes to be happy. And of course, we all have our own theories about happiness too.
How valid are our theories?
Until recently, if you wished for an answer to this question, you would've been forced to base it on discussions with spiritual leaders. Or, if you were lucky, you could've based it on late-night (and perhaps intoxicant-fueled) conversations with friends and family. Happily, all that has changed now. Over the past decade-and-a-half, scientists have gotten into the act big time. We now have a pretty good idea of what it takes to lead a happy and fulfilling life.
This course, based on the award-winning class offered both at the Indian School of Business and at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin, developed by Prof. Raj Raghunathan (aka "Dr. Happy-smarts") draws content from a variety of fields, including psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral decision theory to offer a tested and practical recipe for leading a life of happiness and fulfillment.
Although not mandatory, reading Prof. Raj's forthcoming book, titled If you're so smart, why aren't you happy? can help you review and assimilate the material covered in this book at your leisure.
For Coursera learners alone, the hardcover version of the book is available for a deep discount of 50%, plus shipping and handling. You can order the hardcover for 50% off by writing to Aaron at: Aaron@800ceoread.com. Please mention that you are a student of the "coursera happiness course" in your email.
The course will feature guest appearances by several well-known thought leaders, including:
- Dan Ariely (author of Predictably Irrational and, soon to be released, Irrationally Yours),
- Ed Diener (“Dr. Happiness”),
- Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (author of Flow),
By taking this course, you will discover the answers to questions such as:
- Why aren’t the smart-and-the-successful as happy as they could—or should—be
- What are the “7 Deadly Happiness Sins” that even the smart and the successful commit?, and
- What are the “7 Habits of the Highly Happy” and how can you implement them in your life?
By the end of the course, I expect students who have been diligent with the lectures and exercises to not just gain a deeper understanding of the science of happiness, but to also be significantly happier.

Impartido por:

Dr. Rajagopal Raghunathan

Transcripción

[MUSIC] Ayubowan, my Sinhalese and other friends. Welcome back. So far, I've talked about how needy and being avoidant lower happiness levels and how it's best to strike the middle ground between the two. For many of us, this might be easier said than done. We may even be aware ourselves that we're being too needy and too avoidant for our own happiness and still can't help, but behave that way. One reason for this is the extent to which we're needy or avoidant isn't something that's entirely in our control. It is something that we are conditioned to be by the way that we were raised. Lots of studies, particularly by John Bowlby and a student Mary Ainsworth and others have shown that it is those who did not get enough love and attention. Or the right kind of love and attention as babies and infants, who grow up to become needy or avoidant. In other words, a big reason why people exhibit neediness or avoidance is due to the kind of treatment that they got from their parents or caretakers as infants. Particularly in the first year and a half or so after birth. The fact that the people's neediness or avoidance can be traced back all the way to childhood, doesn't mean, however, that they are forever doomed to be stuck to the present levels of neediness or avoidance. Wrote by Mario Mikulincer and Phillip Shaver, two of the most prominent researchers in this field and they're colleagues, suggest that people can overcome the tendency to become needy and avoidant if they really want to. In one of their studies, Mikulincer and Shaver found that exposing people to security related words like love or hugs. Or asking them to imagine being in a situation where they felt safe and secure made them feel less needy and avoidant. In another study, participants were asked to read a story, in which a student is in trouble, seeks help from his parents, and receives the support and comfort from them. Other participants either read a comic story or a neutral story. What the findings show is that those who read the first story, the story in which a student is in trouble and seeks and receives support from his parents, were more compassionate than either those who read the comic book story or the neutral story. This finding also supports this idea that reading this story in which someone receives support from his parents can make people feel more securely attached. What these results tell us is that our tendency to be needy or avoidant is not set in stone. It can be changed by the types of stories we read or by the types of experiences that we bring to mind. For example, findings show that recalling happy and secure memories from your childhood can make you feel less needy and avoidant. But is there anything else you can do apart from reading stories or recalling memories to overcome neediness and avoidance and bolster this sense of security? Turns out that there are. First thing you can do is to practice self-compassion. As you may recall, self-compassion has to do with being kind and compassionate to yourself. Particularly when you fail at something or you feel unworthy of others love and attention. The reason self compassion can help overcome neediness and avoidance is because when you're self compassionate you're reversing the reason for you neediness and avoidance in the first place. Remember what research tells us about why people are needy or avoidant. Because they haven't gotten enough or the right kind of love and nurturance as infants. So by being self-compassionate, what you're doing is you're giving yourself the love and nurturance that you may not have had from others, particularly when you were an infant. When I met Professor Neff recently, I asked her whether she thinks that self compassion can help those who have trouble getting into and maintaining deep and meaningful relationship. Here's what she said. >> We only have a little bit of data on self compassion in relationships. But one study I recently published with a colleague shows very strongly that people's self compassion make better relationship partners. Their partners are much happier with them. They're able to give more in the relationship. They're less controlling. They're more intimate. They're more caring. So I think for people who do have relationship problems, first of all, the self-compassion might help deal with some of the insecurity that may be keeping them from feeling intimate, feeling comfortable in a relationship. And also it's this thing of, if you're expecting your partner to meet all your emotional needs, exactly as you want them met, exactly when you want them met, and you can meet some of your needs for yourself. You have a lot more chance of giving to your partner. So it definitely seems to be powerful factor of increasing healthy relationships. >> As you just heard self compassion can help with relationships. Another practice that can also help is expressing gratitude. As we saw from the videos last week, Professor Sonja Lyubomirsky calls gratitude a metastrategy. Meaning that it works to improve your happiness on many levels. One way in which it helps you is by improving the quality of relationships that you have. Here, let me play you the part where Professor Lyubomirsky talks about the impact that gratitude has on relationships. >> We show that when you express gratitude you feel more connected to others, you feel close to others. It strengths relationships. >> It's easy to see why you're likely to have better quality relationships when you're grateful. People like to be appreciated. And so, when you're grateful towards them, they like you better. Now you might be wondering, is there anything else other than self-compassion and gratitude that can also help you overcome neediness and avoidance? There is. And this is the strategy on which I want to focus this week. The strategy is to strengthen and nurture what I call the need to love and give. Just like we all have the desire to be loved and nurtured, we also have a deep desire to love and give. Most of us recognize that we have this need when we become parents ourselves or when we adopt a cute pet, like a kitten or a puppy. But our need to love and give goes well beyond our closest circles, our babies, our pets, and families, on to people in society and even to the world at large. Michael Norton from Harvard University was involved in one of my favorite papers on how powerful the need to love and give can be. In one of these studies, Mike and his co-authors gave some money to students at the University of British Columbia as these students were heading towards their classes. And asked them to spend the money either on other people, or on themselves. Imagine that you're a student heading towards your classes and you're given $5. You're then told to spend the money either on yourself or on somebody else. What do you think would make you happier? Thank you for answering that question. As it turns out, Michael and his co-authors found that most people specifically 63% of people think that spending money on themselves would make them happier. Were these people right? Rather than answer the question myself, I'm going to let Mike answer it. Here's Mike, speaking to us from a swanky office in Harvard. You'll first hear what Mike describe what he and his co authors did in this study, then you will hear them tell us what they found >> When we first had the idea of testing whether spending money on other people could make you happier than spending it on yourself, we had to figure out how to test it. The very first thing we thought of doing was basically give people money, tell them to spend it different ways and then see what happened. So, we literally just went out on a college campus and we gave people envelopes filled with money. Some people we gave $5, some people we gave $20. And then we also gave them a slip of paper that said for some people by 5 PM today, spend this money on yourself. And other people got a slip that said by 5 PM, spend it on somebody else. And that was the only difference between these two groups. And we called them up at night and we asked them how happy they were and then we said what'd you spend the money on? Really the simplest thing we can think of to just test the idea is we make you do this versus that with your money. What wins? What's better for you happiness? And it turns out that people who spend money on themselves, they buy coffee and regular stuff. They don't get less happy. It just doesn't do anything over the course of their day. They're just as happy as they were. But people who spend on somebody else, even people who just instead of buying a coffee for themselves bought it for somebody else, they end up being happier at the end of the day. And we see that time and time again when we do these experiments. That on average when you spend on yourself not much happens. But when you spend on somebody else you seem to be happier. >> So, in other words, most people seem to have it wrong when it comes to what will make them happier. They think that spending money on themselves is going to make them happier, when in fact, spending money on others is what makes them happier. Now of course, if you're a skeptical person, or even if you're not particularly skeptical actually, you might wonder how strong this need to love and give is. For example, you might wonder whether participants in the study that I just described were happier when they spent the money on others because they got the money for free from the experimenters. What if you spent your own money? Would you be happier if you spent it on yourself or on others? And what about people who are poor? Would they also be happier if they spent on somebody else or on themselves? These are the questions to which I want to get to in the next video, till then [FOREIGN]. [MUSIC]